Today we will re-examine at the possibility of monetizing public toilets. This was prompted by the The Hustle publishing how a portland activist brought public bathrooms to America, called The fight to build more public bathrooms in America.

I have previously published Start a Public Toilet Business & Start Your Own Public Toilet Advertising Agency and that is what you need as a primer for what I am about to say.

Let’s recap what The Hustle had to say, and we will also look at the NPR article “San Diego Installed Public Loos, But Now They’re Flush With Problems” because this ties into market need as we ask: “Why is it so hard (and expensive) for governments to build and maintain public toilets”.

From The Hustle:

Today’s cities are almost completely devoid of public toilets. An unfolding movement is trying to change that.

Portland is one of a growing number of other cities in the US where people are fed up with the lack of bathrooms — and they’re taking action.

We’ve all been stuck in the middle of a city with nowhere to go. But why does the US have so few bathrooms to begin with? And why does it take such a monumental effort to fix such a seemingly small problem?

 

Where did all the bathrooms go?
Exactly how the US got its public bathroom problem is difficult to untangle — but certainly, it wasn’t always like this.

In the early 1900s, American cities were flush with public toilets, thanks to a confluence of factors:

The paucity of indoor plumbing meant few homes had private bathrooms. Many venues, like theaters, also didn’t have bathrooms. People from all class backgrounds had little choice but to seek out public toilets.

Because most people went to the bathrooms in saloons, well-organized temperance activists pushed for public restrooms as a way to keep people out of bars in the 1910s and 1920s.

Before the rise of the automobile, most people relied on trains and buses to get around. These stations almost always had bathrooms available.

It all came crashing down for two overarching reasons. First, the rise of the automobile convinced cities to shutter public bathrooms in transit hubs.

“There was a slow, slow movement away from on-the-street public bathrooms to gas-station bathrooms,” Lezlie Lowe, the author of a book on public toilets called No Place To Go, told The Hustle. While some of those gas stations were located in downtown cores, many were not.

 

The broken economics of public toilets
Today, there’s another reason for the dearth of public restrooms in cities: They’re expensive to build.

Most public bathrooms cost between around $80k and $500k, depending on the size and the sophistication of the model. But sometimes they can go way over that.

Last month, San Francisco unveiled plans to build a 150-square-foot public toilet for $1.7m. It is an eye-popping figure, and the steep cost comes from a few key line items:

Base construction contract: $750k
Planning & Design: $450k
Architecture and engineering fees: $300k
Rec and Park project management: $175k
Construction management: $150k

 

And maintenance isn’t cheap.

The city of Sacramento recently pegged annual maintenance fees for a planned public bathroom at $341.5k. In San Francisco, that number is closer to $600k.

 

Market Need (Problem that need to be solved)
There is little doubt that if you were to have a survey many people will say there should be more public toilets in cities. Yes, you can pop in and out a McDonalds or KFC and some petrol stations. The latter (petrol stations) have become less accommodating in some areas where they will say the toilet is out of order for some people while happily handing over the keys to others. The irony is not lost that foreigners – petrol jockeys are 99% Malawian in SA – are in control of the keys and not even wanting locals to use the publicly available toilets in their own country. But that is another story for another day.

We had asked: Why is it so hard (and expensive) for governments to build and maintain public toilets?
Apparently in the US one of the reasons is bureaucracy. From The Hustle:

“San Francisco requires nearly all public projects to undergo a comprehensive Civic Design Review, a process that assigns a committee to study both the structure and aesthetics of new buildings”.

Solving the problem

Privately Owned Toilets
If we look at any shop, a restaurant for example that has toilets, both male and female. To build that toilet does not cost millions. You do not need a urinal that looks like a spaceship and is self-cleaning. We can go to a hardware store and get an idea what the raw materials cost: toilets, urinals, basins and get a quote from a builder and plumber. My friend has built and installed toilets in his pub and it was a small undertaking both in cost and difficultly. We have established that privately owned toilets will be cheaper to build. But will the business model work?

The problem is maintaining the toilet. Last time I said office hours only. And there will be a cleaner on site at all times. Which will make it similar to a mall toilet in difficultly levels to maintain. Which is not hard unless you Parow Centre in Cape Town their toilets are literally shit.

The next issue is monetization. Many toilets have started to charge an entry fee ostensibly to prevent homeless people from washing themselves there. (which is funny because some homeless people make more than minimum wage begging). And they don’t offer change. So this has caused people to walk around looking for change. I don’t like this model.

I spoke of advertising supported in my last posts. You are able to sell adverts to male toilets and female toilets. Hell you can even make unisex and non-binary toilets and sell ads to woke companies.